Growing Bigger & Tasty Toast

Our story time focus this week continued with a growing theme and this time we thought about ourselves.  We wondered if we are growing and when we might be as big as our big brothers/sisters or even Miss Cronin?  The children were fascinated to hear that grown-ups have actually stopped growing (upwards, at least!).  We read a delightful book called ‘The Growing Story’ which was originally published in 1947.  It has since been beautifully re-illustrated by Helen Oxenbury (who also illustrated We’re Going on a Bear Hunt).  In ‘The Growing Story’ a little boy watches the plants and animals around him growing bigger as the seasons change and he wonders if he will ever grow too…

Image result for the growing story helen oxenbury

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a good quality video clip of the story for you to revisit at home, but you can read more about the story here and share some of the lovely illustrations together…

Image result for the growing story helen oxenbury

Image result for the growing story helen oxenbury

We also read the story of Titch by Pat Hutchins about a little boy trying to keep up with his big sister and even bigger brother.  The children decided that Titch was probably about 2 or 3 years old, while his sister Mary was 4 or 5 and his brother Peter was 6 or 7 “or even 10!”.  Such impressive mathematical reasoning Nursery – well done!

Image result for titch

You can revisit the story in this clip below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_BNxLeKI20

The children decided that one of things they need to do to make sure they are growing is to eat lots!  So, we all had a go at making toast.

First, we put the square piece of bread in the toast and pressed the button down.  We stayed well back from the toaster because “it is hot” and “because it is electric”.  We knew that only grown-ups should touch a real toaster and if we see one at home, we must not make toast without asking a grown-up first.

We waited patiently until the toaster popped!  Then Mrs Morris carefully took the square piece of bread out of the toaster and we looked at it to see if it had turned into toast.  If it had turned golden brown, we knew it was now toast!

The next step was to use a knife to spread the butter onto our toast.  Miss Cronin showed us how to hold the knife carefully, using our pointy finger on top to steady it and guide it along the toast.  We also held the piece of toast in place with our other hand.  After the butter, it was time to spread on the strawberry jam.

Image result for how to hold a knife when buttering

https://assets.seesaw.me/us-2/c/f/9/d/c/0/cf9dc0c5-5ddb-4537-bcbf-c6848ae9cfa3.jpg:::1574467200:::604800:::vG6KtpiWI7eUQduOjkLDnoArppV8N7K0vESrYxo1lPuwXd7DwEA_nOhOgiDqumaVzB4hJeQHpPj-8mpUskQ50A.jpg The children then chose to cut their toast into two triangles, four triangles or keep it as one square.  After all that hard work, it was time to eat our toast and everyone agreed it was delicious!

Finally, the children’s interest in numbers this week also led us to this nursery rhyme…can you guess what it is?

That’s right!  It’s the old favourite – Ten Green Bottles!  Why not have a go at singing along at home or make your very own green bottles (e.g. you could write numbers on yoghurt pots or something similar from your recycling box).

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Bravery & Inspiration

It has been yet another busy week in Nursery! Not only did we join in with the rest of the school as they marked Remembrance Day and Black History Month but, as always, we found plenty of time for learning through play.  We also had Parents Evenings and I do hope everyone found their meeting helpful and informative.  Thank you very much for taking the time to come along.

On Monday, the big children at school got together for a special Remembrance Day assembly.  Each class had made a poppy wreath, organised by our Art Coordinator Mrs Bibby, and these were placed on the prayer table in the big hall.

Two of our Nursery children went into the assembly to present Mr Quinn with our wreath and later in the morning, at 11am, we took a pause from our play to spend two minutes thinking quietly about all the very brave people in the world.  We watched a delightful CBeebies animation which helped us complete the two minutes silence.  You can watch it again here.

Later in the week, we joined the rest of the school once again, by contributing to a whole-school exhibition of children’s work to mark Black History Month.  Mr Stocking, who is our History & Geography Coordinator, gave each class the name of a famous black person to research and be inspired by.  In Nursery, we were inspired by the famous children’s television presenter Floella Benjamin.  Back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, a television programme called Play School appeared on television sets around the UK.  One of the segments was a short film about the real world which was introduced through a square, round or arched window.   Floella was one of the presenters of ‘Play School’ and you can read more about her here.

Taking inspiration from these shape windows, we decided to have a look through all the many different shaped windows in our Nursery (both inside and outside).  The children took their own photographs on the Ipad of the images they could see as they looked through the different shapes.  We hope you will agree that the resulting images are quite fantastic!  Who knew that 3 and 4 years could be such amazing photographers!

The exhibition was on display during Parents Evenings this week but, don’t worry, if you didn’t get a chance to see it, we will be displaying the photographs in our classroom soon, so do look out for them at drop-off.

Back in the classroom, we are always looking for new hands-on, sensory experiences for the children that encourage the development of their fine motor skills.  We thought coloured rice might provide such an experience but, instead of colouring it for them, we decided to set them the challenge of colouring it themselves!  At the start of the week, the children discovered plain rice in the water tray and spent much of the morning pouring, scooping and sieving…

The following day, we removed all the water and gave the children soap pumps filled with blue or red food colouring.

After a morning of pumping and mixing, the children were fascinated to discover that the rice was turning red, blue and, in some places, purple!

The next day, we removed the rice from the water tray and spread it out on a tuff tray under the heater to encourage it to dry out.  Doesn’t it look wonderfully colourful!

During our story time sessions, we followed last week’s reading of Pumpkin Soup with the stories of The Gigantic Turnip and The Enormous Potato.  Both are, of course, twists on the classic ‘Enormous Turnip’ story.

The Enormous Potato

Finally, we read ‘The Enormous Watermelon’ which…

Image result for the enormous watermelon"

…you can rediscover here…(remember to turn off the sound and read the story yourself)…look out for the pictures which give a clue as to the next character who will come and help to pull the watermelon out!

Finally, after all that talk of planting and growing, the children were thrilled to have the chance to plant their own bulbs in the garden.  They all followed the instructions very carefully to make sure the bulbs were placed into the soil the right way up and then gently covered them over with soil.  We can hardly wait to watch our bulbs sprout, grow and blossom.

“they will grow tomorrow”

“they will grow after Christmas”

“they will grow in Spring”

We hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, see you on Monday!

Let’s Go Camping!

As people across the country looked forward to heading out into the cold, Autumnal nights to keep warm around the bonfire and watch the night-sky light up with fireworks, we were busy enjoying our very own firework display and campfire in the classroom!  Don’t worry, we all kept safe with the firework display provided by several youtube clips on the interactive whiteboard and the campfire consisting of wooden logs, orange tissue paper and lots of imagination!

Several weeks ago, we had noticed that the children were particularly interested in the idea of “going camping”.  So, we decided to support their learning through play with the creation of a campsite complete with tent, sleeping bags, camping pillows, camping chairs and, of course, torches!

The children absolutely loved their campsite and quickly set to work, rolling the playdough into sausages, ready to be cooked on the open fire…

…making sure there was plenty of firewood to keep the fire going…

…and even reading a story or two by torchlight in the tent…

Our camping chairs provided the best seats in the house for the firework displays…and a quick chat on the phone!

And the firework displays inspired our very own firework mark-making in coloured sand…

We read the story of Bernie Sparks and Rocky the Rocket on Bonfire Night to help the children understand about how to keep themselves safe on the real Bonfire Night.

And, following on from last week’s excitement 🎃, we also read the story of Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper.  This charming book tells the tale of Cat, Duck and Squirrel as they learn about friendship and sharing by working together to make their favourite pumpkin soup.

Image result for pumpkin soup story

You can revisit the story below.  Try turning the sound off and reading it aloud yourself.

The Little Acorns had a go at creating their own pumpkin recipes…

And back in the classroom, Mrs Morris came up with this rather novel use of an old pumpkin!

Have a lovely weekend everyone and thank you for all the wonderful contributions to our nature table – it is really looking beautiful! 🍁

Festivals of Light

Welcome back to the second half of the Autumn term!  We hope everyone enjoyed a restful half term break.  As the dark nights draw in and the leaves start to change colour, we have been encouraging the children to notice the different coloured leaves in the garden.  If you find any red, yellow or oranges leaves when out and about this weekend, please do bring them into Nursery for our Nature Table.  Thank you!

There was great excitement this week as many of the children were looking forward to spending time with their families, celebrating a certain festival that involves special costumes, decorating homes, eating sweets and lighting candles! 🎃

In Nursery, we take every opportunity to find out about different cultures and religions so, this week, we decided to find out about a celebration that also involves costumes, decorations, sweets and candles: the light festival of Diwali.

Unlike Halloween, Diwali is a religious festival.  It is celebrated every year by Hindus all around the world.  First, we read the story of the Ramayana which tells the tale of Rama and Sita, who defeat the ten-headed demon king, Ravana, with the help of the monkey king, Hanuman.  The children all agreed that Ravana was “not very kind and friendly”!

Image result for rama and sita story

You can re-visit the story in this CBeebies clip:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/stories/lets-celebrate-diwaliperformance

During Diwali, Hindus light diya lamps to symbolise the victory of light over darkness, just like in the story of Rama and Sita.  They also wear special clothes, decorate their homes and eat lots of special sweets!

Meet Jessica here to find out more about how Diwali is celebrated.

We had a go at dressing up ourselves!

Retelling the story of the Ramayana:

And we practised our mark-making within this beautiful Rangoli pattern!

We hope you’ll understand that we decided to leave all the sweet-eating to you at home!  Have a lovely weekend everyone 😊

The Big Red Bus & The Big Red Engine

Last week, we noticed the children were spending lots of time piling themselves and their belongings (i.e. bags full of items from the home corner!) into the big, wooden car to head off on various adventures.  As we always try to follow the children’s interests when it comes to enhancing our learning environment, we decided to transform the car into a number 57 bus!

The children were thrilled to discover the bus waiting for them at the bus stop when they arrived on Monday morning.  They grabbed a debit card, tapped in and quickly found a seat!  Luckily, several of them also knew how to drive the bus and it wasn’t long before they set off…

I wondered if they were heading off to Kingston but I was quickly corrected “no, we’re going to beach!”  And, sure enough, a small group got off at the next stop (the sand tray) to play at the beach!

At the end of the week, we were lucky enough to be visited by another big, red vehicle – in this case, a real fire engine!  There was great excitement as the children spotted the engine pulling up outside the school…

We joined the Reception children in their classroom to meet the firefighters and learn more about the special clothes they wear to keep them safe…

Then, we went outside to have a close up look at the fire engine! We were even allowed to sit on the back seats and try on the firefighter helmet!

What an exciting end to the half term!  A huge thank you must go to Blue Watch at New Malden Fire Station for coming to visit us and to Mrs Bibby for organising the visit.

If you would like to find out more about fire safety at home, including fire alarm installation, visit https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/safety/the-home/.

We hope everyone has a wonderful half term break!  See you back at Nursery on Monday 28th October.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Mrs Williams

This week it was time to say Goodbye to a very special person.  Our wonderful Mrs Williams is moving on to a new job after 16 years at St. Matthew’s!  We will miss her so much but we are so grateful for all the love and expertise she has given to our Nursery over the years and we know she will continue to make a real difference to so many children in her new role as a Speech and Language Therapist.

All the children in the school (from Reception to Year 6) contributed to a special memory book for Mrs Williams which we presented to her in a whole school assembly on Friday morning.  And Mrs Williams was absolutely delighted with the wonderful card & flowers that Mrs Robinson organised from the Nursery children and parents.  Thank you so much everyone!

As we say goodbye and thank you to Mrs Williams, it seems rather fitting that our whole school value this half term has been thankfulness.  In Reception, the children have been finding out about people who help us and being thankful for these people.  This week, they have had several visitors from the local community.  Mrs Bibby and Mrs Rainey kindly invited us to join the Reception children as they met Brian the Firefighter and PC Rainey.  You can read more about their visits on the  Reception blog.

On Mrs Williams last day, she read the children one last story; “This is Our House” by the former Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen.  You can re-watch it here below.

The children’s play in the classroom this week reminded me of the picture at the end of the book when everyone finally plays together!  Of course, the children in our Nursery know just what to do when there isn’t enough space for everyone in the car…why, simply add more chairs and turn the car into a camper van!  Well done Nursery!

Rain, rain, go away!

Rain, rain, go away, come again another day!  This is actually something you will very rarely hear us say in Nursery quite simply because we love to go out in the rain!

The children have been working hard to remember the three things they need to do before heading out in the rain:

  1. Put your boots on…

2. Put your coat on (and have a go at doing up your zip! – perhaps a grown-up can start you off…)

3. And make sure your hood is up!

Well done! Now you’re ready to play in the rain! ☔️☔️☔️

Our favourite thing to do in the rain is jump in muddy puddles of course!  We were also fascinated by all the different colours and effects we could create by sprinkling powder paint into the puddles…

Back in the classroom, we have been reading lots of familiar stories to help the children feel settled at Nursery while getting used to our daily routine.

Here are two of our favourites which you might like to revisit at home.  Try turning the sound off for this one (Harry and the Dinosaurs go to School) and read it yourself as the video plays…

Lots of the dinosaurs seem to have made their way to our school too!

We always love reading the wonderful story of Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.

Image result for owl babies toys

Here’s a delightful animation of the story which you might like to share together at home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPQRiSTYFHo

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Light Festival

Just a reminder that The PTA Light Festival will be taking place this coming Friday (11th October) between 6pm and 8pm. This is a delightful, magical event and a real highlight of the school year.  It takes place at school, with a light parade on the field after dark!

Welcome (back) to Nursery!

Welcome to a new year in Nursery!  We have had a busy couple of weeks; welcoming back our older children and settling in 11 new children.  There are now 17 children in our class.  Our older children have been doing a fantastic job of helping the new children to find their way around our Nursery and we have been so impressed by how brave the new children have been at drop-off.  Well done everyone – and grown-ups too – we know saying goodbye in the mornings isn’t always easy for you either!

Over the summer, we were very lucky to have had some improvements made to our wonderful garden.  We have had a new, rather bouncy surface added in a large area running down from the tree, around the treehouse and almost all the way to the fence.  We hope this will make the area safer when we want to set ourselves physical challenges, as well as making it a little less muddy!  But never fear, we absolutely love mud and would never get rid of it all in our garden, as we feel this is a very important, real-world, sensory experience for the children.  Not only do we have our mud kitchen, which continues to be a firm favourite amongst our budding chefs, but we now have the foundations of a proper digging area too!  A huge thank you must go to the Flood family for donating several car tyres and to the Ryalls for organising the gifting and delivery of our new logs – thank you so very much for thinking of us!  Do look out for even more improvements to the garden over the coming term…

Another addition to the garden has been our fantastic stage!  We have already enjoyed several superb performances including repeated renditions of ‘Let It Go’!!

And we have been blessed with some lovely warm weather which has allowed the children to enjoy lots of explorative water play outside…

Back inside the classroom, the children have been getting to know the different areas of the Nursery.  Our creative area has been particularly popular this week with many children choosing to design and create with the junk modelling materials.  This area is set up to promote independence and imagination!  We encourage the children to think about the different materials they might need for their designs and to ask us if they need something else that might help their design come together.  Often, the children show fantastic perseverance and problem-solving skills in this area.  Understandably, even the best laid plans don’t always come together straightaway, especially when you’re trying to create a rocket-ship complete with sleeping compartments!

Do look out for the Autumn term edition of ‘Nursery News’ which should have made it home to you yesterday; this is our termly newsletter which aims to keep you informed about upcoming events and provides you with some ideas for ways in which to support your child’s learning at home.

The first key date for your diary is this coming Friday (27th September) when the Macmillan Coffee Morning (more info here) will take place in the school hall after drop-off at 9am.  Do come along and enjoy a slice of cake while meeting other St. Matthew’s families and raising money for Macmillan (any donation, no matter how small, is welcomed).

Finally, please remember to add your contact details to the sheet that our wonderful class rep (Mrs Robinson) has put up on the Nursery garden door – she will then be able to connect you all to keep you informed about events and give you a chance to get to know one another as part of the wider St. Matthew’s community.

 

Up, Up and Away!

We are very lucky in our current Nursery class to have such an international group of children with families coming from all around the globe; even as far away as Japan and Chile!  After all that travel on the high seas last week, it was perhaps not surprising to hear the children’s conversations turn to their own personal experiences of travel – often on airplanes.

This week, the children were amazed to discover an actual airplane had landed in the classroom over the weekend and it was ready to whisk them away on holiday!  They all knew just what to do; packing their suitcases in the home corner (the phrase packing the kitchen sink certainly springs to mind!), ensuring they had their passports and boarding passes, before putting their bags through the X-ray machine at security!

Earlier in the week, we had an ex-student carrying out some work experience in the class.  He came to school dressed very smartly in a suit and looked quite the part working in security!

Once on the plane, they carefully put their bags into the overhead lockers and settled down in their seats with their seat-belts fastened.  For those passengers lucky enough to have first class tickets, a slice of cake and a neck cushion awaited them in the special seats.  There was even a curtain separating them from the economy seats!

The pilots did a fantastic job of checking the flight plan, radioing through to air traffic control and managing some superbly smooth take-offs and landings!

We used real-life footage of pilots in the cockpit to help them with their in-flight training!  The background noise from the footage actually made the children’s play experience even more authentic, with one child whispering “this feels really real!”

For the long-haul flights, there was also a trolley service, serving teas and coffees and £5 tubs of Pringles!

On one of our stopovers, the older children found time to visit Mrs Bibby in the Reception class.  She read us a story and talked to us about what it will be like when we go into Reception.  Thank you Mrs Bibby!

What a wonderful week we have had; flying all around the world to so many far-flung destinations! Bon voyage to all our lovely families as you set off on your travels, real or imagined, this summer… 🌞

We can hardly believe there are only three days of term left!  We hope to see many of you at the Open Evening on Tuesday and at Sports Day on Wednesday.